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Solid and Hazardous Waste

Solid and Hazardous Waste. G. Tyler Miller’s Living in the Environment 14 th Edition Edited by Mr. Manskopf 2009 Chapter 24. http://www.storyofstuff.com/. Love Canal.

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Solid and Hazardous Waste

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  1. Solid and Hazardous Waste G. Tyler Miller’s Living in the Environment 14th Edition Edited by Mr. Manskopf 2009 Chapter 24

  2. http://www.storyofstuff.com/

  3. Love Canal In 1978, Love Canal, located near Niagara Falls in upstate New York, was a nice little working-class enclave with hundreds of houses and a school. It just happened to sit atop 21,000 tons of toxic industrial waste that had been buried underground in the 1940s and '50s by a local company. Over the years, the waste began to bubble up into backyards and cellars. By 1978, the problem was unavoidable, and hundreds of families sold their houses to the federal government and evacuated the area. The disaster led to the formation in 1980 of the Superfund program, which helps pay for the cleanup of toxic sites.

  4. Love Canal, New YorkWhen Waste is Not Disposed of Properly • 1942 to 1958 Hooker Chemicals Disposal Site • 1953 Sold to Niagara Falls School Board (school, housing) • 1976 Residents becoming sick • 1978 Lois Gibbs leads outcry • 1980 Declared Disaster Site • 2004 Taken off Superfund List

  5. Chapter 24 Key Concepts • Types and amounts of wastes • Methods to reduce waste • Methods of dealing with wastes • Hazardous waste regulation in the US

  6. Section 1: Wasting Resources Why should we care about solid waste? How much waste does the U.S. produce? What is in the garbage? The throw away mentality: OUT of SIGHT… OUT OF MIND

  7. Solid Waste • Unwanted or discarded material that is not liquid or gas • Out of sight Out of Mind • No Waste In Nature Two Reasons to Be Concerned: • Wasted Resources • Causes huge amounts of air, water, land pollution and soil erosion

  8. Wasting Resources • Industrial and agricultural waste • Municipal solid waste Fig. 24-2 p. 533 • US: 11 billion metric tons/year

  9. Affluenza In Action • U.S. produces 1/3rd of world’s solid waste and buries ½ of it • Most waste from mining, oil, gas, ag., sewage, industry • Think about a simple product like a computer…how much waste produced to create it (Life Cycle)

  10. Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) • Municipal solid waste refers to solid waste generated by commercial establishment and households and collected by locally mandate government bodies. • 1.5% of Solid Waste is MSW • 38% is paper, 12% yard waste, 11% food waste, 10% platics • E-Waste Growing FAST

  11. MSW Continued… Garbologists findings • 50 year old newspapers still readable • Pork Chops decades old WHY DO THEY NOT DECOMPOSE????.....what do things need to decompose? The purpose of a landfill is to bury the trash in such a way that it will be isolated from groundwater, will be kept dry and will not be in contact with air. Under these conditions, trash will not decompose much. A landfill is not like a compost pile, where the purpose is to bury trash in such a way that it will decompose quickly.

  12. MSW Continued… Enough disposable diapers each year linked together would go to moon and back 7 times Enough office paper to build a wall 11 feet high between NYC and SF The United States goes through 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour and only 1 out of 4 is recycled. Enough plastic bottles are thrown away each year in the United States to circle the earth four times.

  13. Section 2: Producing Less Waste What are our options? Management or Prevention How can we reduce solid waste? What can you do?

  14. Producing Less Waste and Pollution • Waste management (high waste approach) Waste is part of economic growth, lets manage negatives • Burying, burning, shipping • Waste prevention (low waste approach) Before product is produced look to minimize life cycle • Reduce, reuse, recycle

  15. Dealing with Material Use and Wastes Fig. 24-3 p. 535

  16. The Sustainability Six • Consume less: Do we Really NEED this? • Redesign products to use less resources: How can we make this product using less resources throughout their life cycle • Redesign to use and make less pollution: Toxic substances etc.

  17. The Sustainability Six 4) Develop products that are easier to repair, reuse, remanufacture, compost or recycle 5) Design products to last longer 6) Eliminate or reduce packaging (nude packaging)

  18. Planned Obsolescence • A manufacturing decision by a company to make consumer products in such a way that they become out-of-date or useless within a known time period. The main goal of this type of production is to ensure that consumers will have to buy the product multiple times, rather than only once. This naturally stimulates demand for an industry's products because consumers have to keep coming back again and again.

  19. Section 3: Selling Services not Things How can we copy nature and reduce waste? What is a service flow economy? In a service and flow economy, companies liquidize a service rather than a product. To do so, manufacturers of devices, like air conditioners, loan their physical equipment to houses and other buildings, and consumers pay for the maintenance of the service rather than for the machine itself. This revision of the traditional producer-consumer relationship would encourage a change in how Americans view the acquisition of goods from an indicator of status to the investment in the most reliable and sustainable goods present in the market.

  20. Solutions: Cleaner Production • Ecoindustrial revolution: its goal is to make • industrial manufacturing processes cleaner and more sustainable by redesigning • them to mimic nature's way of dealing with waste • Resource exchange webs: waste of 1 manufacturer becomes raw materials for another • Biomimicry: using less resources to do same • Service-flow economy selling services not goods. Renting, eco-leasing, etc.

  21. Solutions: Selling Services Instead of Things • Service-flow economy • Uses a minimum amount of material • Products last longer • Products are easier to maintain, repair, and recycle • Eco-leasing: computers, cell phones, etc. See Individuals Matter p. 538

  22. Section 4: Reuse What are the advantages and disadvantages of reuse? Should we use refillable containers? What are some other ways to reuse things?

  23. What is REUSE? Cleaning and using the material over and over again increasing the lifespan of the product

  24. Junkyards and salvaging wood from old homes etc.

  25. Not Reuse…

  26. Reuse: Pros • Extends resource supplies • Saves energy and money • Reduces pollution • Create jobs • Reusable products

  27. Reuse: Cons • Waste (especially e-waste) can contain harmful substances…especially heavy metals Many seek out living scavenging for waste in large open dumps

  28. Some Success • 95% of Finland’s soft drink, beer, wine bottles reused • Germany about 3/4th are refilled

  29. Other examples of Reuse… Shopping bags and tool libraries

  30. Be creative!

  31. Section 5: Recycling What is recycling? What is composting? How should we recycle solid waste? How much waste paper is being recycled? How feasible is recycling plastics? Why isn’t more reused and recycled?

  32. What is recycling? Reprocessing solid waste into new useful products 5 Categories in US Household Recycling • Paper Products • Glass • Aluminum • Steel • Some plastics

  33. Types of Recycling • Primary (closed-loop) • Secondary (open loop) There are three levels of recycling, primary, secondary and tertiary. Primary recycling is taking the recycled material and putting it back into the same product; secondary recycling is using the material in some other end product; tertiary recycling requires breaking the material down into its original components. • Preconsumer waste • Postconsumer waste Fig. 24-6 p. 539

  34. Characteristics of Recyclable Materials • Easily isolated from other waste • Available in large quantities • Valuable

  35. Recycling Rates • Switzerland, Japan 50% • U.S. 30% up from 6.4% in 1960 • 60-80% is achievable

  36. Benefits of Recycling Fig. 24-8 p. 541

  37. Composting • Composting organic waste mimics nature • Only 5% of yard waste composted in U.S….could easily be raised to 35% • Compost used as fertilizer, topsoil and help restore eroded land

  38. Composting

  39. Recycling Methods • Centralized recycling of mixed waste (Materials-Recovery Facilities, MRFs) Pros/Cons of MRFs • Sourceseparation: separate waste at home • Pay-as-you-throw(PAUT): pay for waste, not recycling

  40. MRFs: Need large volume and energy

  41. Wastepaper Recycling • Easy to recycle • Removing ink, glue coating and reconverting into pulp • 42% of world tree harvest is for paper • Currently U.S. recycles 49% of waste paper • Making paper has big enviro impact

  42. How plastics are made • Recycling plastic is difficult chemically and economically • 10% in U.S. recycled • Different resins • Low cost of oil • Biodegradable plastics (bioplatics) offer hope

  43. Types of Plastic

  44. Economics of Recycling • Paper, aluminum, steel are easy to recycle and make easy economic sense • CRITICS: 1) plenty of landfill space, 2) Glass and plastic expensive to recycle • Employs 1.1 million people

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